Daily Inspiration

Are you attached to being right as a way to control how others feel about you and treat you? Do you hesitate to speak your truth because you want to be sure you are right? Protecting yourself from others' disapproval by having to be right is not loving to yourself. It is loving to yourself to speak your truth, without judgment, and then courageously deal with the results.
By Dr. Margaret Paul

Others Treat Us The Way We Treat Ourselves

Discover how to love the unlovable in yourself and transform how others treat you.

"Everybody
is like a magnet. You attract to yourself reflections of that which you are. If
you're friendly, then everybody else seems to be friendly too." --Dr. David Hawkins, Physician and Lecturer

Have you
ever noticed how true this is?

I would
change it a bit and say that we attract to ourselves what we choose to be in
any given moment.

What we
intrinsically are, is our true essence, which is a spark of the Divine -
unconditional love. But since we don't always attract unconditional love to us,
others are generally reflecting who we've chosen to be.

It is my
experience that when I choose to interact with others as my true Self, others
usually relate to me from their true Selves. At those times when I allow my ego
wounded self to be in charge, others relate to me from their ego wounded
selves.

Of course,
this isn't always true. I can be my most unconditionally loving self and others
still might stay in their wounded selves - angry, closed, withdrawn. After all,
I can't control how another person chooses to be. But I have found that the
more loving I am to myself, the more loving I am to others, and the more I
attract loving people to me.

Most people
unconsciously pick up the energy of how you treat yourself. They might not be
able to articulate it, but their behavior generally reflects this. If you tend
to be judgmental of yourself, then it is likely that you often feel judged by
others. Sometimes they are actually judging you, but many times you are
projecting your own self-judgment onto them and believing they are judging you
when they aren't. In either case, your experience is that of being judged.

Years ago,
I judged myself all the time. If I made a mistake, I relentlessly beat myself
up for it. So of course I attracted people to me who judged me; then I would
try to control how they felt about me by judging myself! All this effort to
control myself and them was exhausting.

When I was
finally able to connect my constant anxiety and feelings of shame with my own
self-judgment, I was gradually able to completely stop judging myself, and
instead learned to move into compassion for myself. That's when I started to
attract compassionate people into my life.

One of the
most powerful things you can do to attract love into your life is to shift your
intent - from controlling yourself and others with judgments - to loving all
aspects of yourself.

"Love
the Unlovable in Yourself"

Marci
Shimoff, in "Love for No Reason," states that one of the keys for the
doorway of unconditional self-love is to "Love the Unlovable in
Yourself." I totally agree.

In the
Inner Bonding process, we call the unlovable part of ourselves our wounded
self. This is the part of us who is always trying to have control over getting
love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe.

Our wounded
self is NOT who we are - it is who we decided to be, as young children, when we
did not receive love for who we were. This part of us is not bad, but since
most people don't like it when we try to control them, it is not likely that
anyone is ever going to love our wounded self.

Yet this
part of us cannot heal without love. Therefore, it is our job to love our
wounded self - the part of us who believes we are not good enough. It is only
through our love, compassion, kindness, gentleness and tenderness toward this
wounded part of ourselves that we can heal our core shame and false beliefs
about ourselves.

You will be
amazed at how differently people treat you when you treat all aspects of
yourself with compassion.